


Pictures and Papers

by thecolorofstars



Series: I didn't mean to ship this [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecolorofstars/pseuds/thecolorofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you miss not hating me?”</p><p>“I miss not having a reason to.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures and Papers

The station has long since gone off air and the microphone is as dead as over half of the interns. Still, Cecil remains in his dark booth. He isn’t sitting high and confident on his chair, checking over his notes before announcing the breaking news. Instead, Night Vale’s beloved radio host is on the floor with his knees pressed against his chest. Silently, so as not to disturb Station Management, he stares down at the worn shoebox. The cardboard has taken a battering over the years, both by his hand and not.

A cold feeling of sad nostalgia fills him as he lifts the lid, slowly reaching for the contents. Unlike many shoeboxes, this one holds nothing but horrific memories. The letters are old and crumpled, but were obviously smoothed out carefully. On them is a story that Cecil no longer needs to read. The pictures, faded slightly in their age, show two young men smiling. Cecil’s head drops onto his knees.

“You don’t actually hate me,” a voice says quietly, almost smugly, from the doorway.

Cecil doesn’t lift his head. He already knows exactly who is watching him.

“No, Steve, I do hate you,” he reassures his listener. “Don’t make any mistake about that.”

With a sigh, Steve crosses the small room and sits across from Cecil. He picks up one of the pictures and smiles slightly. It’s the same smile that Cecil used to find so enticing before... well, it truly is all Steve’s fault. The photograph was taken by Steve himself, held out so that both he and Cecil could be seen laughing and struggling to save their ice cream cones from the desert’s heat.

“You didn’t hate me back then,” Steve corrects himself. “Do you miss not hating me?”

“I miss not having a reason to,” he explains, pulling the picture out of Steve’s hands.

“You don’t have a reason to,” Steve reminds him.

This earns him a glare. Steve meets Cecil’s eyes with determination, but only holds them for a moment before he gives a sad, resigned sigh.

“It’s a stupid reason, Cecil.”

“It isn’t something I can help,” Cecil reminds him. “You keep on running around and yelling to the world about the government. You’re the one who insists acting like it’s all a huge deal.”

“And you’re the one who insists on acting like it isn’t!” Steve exclaims. “You report news about the government watching us constantly and tell people how to make it easier on the officers. None of this bothers you and I just don’t get it!”

“It’s just how the world works, Steve. I don’t have a problem with it and you do. That’s all there is to it.”

Cecil shrugs and starts packing the box up, but Steve pushes his hand away. Carefully, he picks up one of the wrinkled papers.

“You kept my letters?” he asks, reading over his own scrawling handwriting.

Cecil sighs, “I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.”

The pictures tell stories of their time together, but the abused papers tell the story of their time apart. It truly is Steve’s fault. He insisted on traveling out of Night Vale and studying at a different university. At first the letters were full of his upset ramblings, shouting about how they all looked at him strangely when he asked about things that Night Vale residents took for normal.

That didn’t last.

Slowly, the content began to change. He started telling Cecil about the outside world with excitement. The people there had almost complete freedom, there was a startling lack of small hidden cameras and microphones, and millions of other untold wonders that had been hiding just outside of the desert. There were also pictures of the ocean, brilliant and sparkling. It was something new to them both. Something that Cecil still hasn’t seen and doesn’t care to.

“Does that mean that you’re considering them?” Steve asks, looking up with... hope?

Cecil glances down, staring at a picture without truly seeing it.

“Cecil?”

When Steve came back he hadn’t changed at all, but at the same time he was too different. Night Vale started to look threatening to him. Everything had changed in his eyes. The only thing that remained the same was Cecil. They would sit together in Cecil’s new apartment and marathon the city council’s list of approved movies. Where those marathons ended and their more private activities began was a blurry line, but they liked it that way. Cecil avoided bringing up the letters for as long as he could.

“No, I’m not considering them. It’s all nonsense. I like Night Vale the way that it is.”

It is an old, lost argument. Neither side can win now because it isn’t something to be won. They lost each other a long time ago and now they have nothing to fight for. There was a time when they both entertained thoughts of winning back the one that they had loved so dearly, but that time passed years ago. In its place is the shell of the fight that tore them apart.

The silence fills the room for another tense moment. Steve carefully places the letters back into the shoebox, allowing Cecil to place the rest of the pictures and papers into the worn cardboard. They both stand as he places it back in his locked cabinet.

“Do you truly love Carlos?” Steve asks, refusing to meet Cecil’s eyes.

“Yes, I do.”

“Good,” Steve says with a sad smile. “I’m glad that you found someone.”

“I’m sure there’s someone for you,” Cecil reassures him, placing a hand on his shoulder gently. “Maybe they’re just not here in Night Vale.”

Steve’s head jerks up, eyebrows raised in surprise. Never before has Cecil spoken of the outside world with anything other than a voice of slight distaste at best. At worst, he doesn’t even bother to hide his pure loathing. Steve opens his mouth to reply, but can find no words.

“It made you happy to be out there,” Cecil continues. “The person who is going to make you happy is probably out there too.”

A small smile finds its way onto Steve’s face, “You’re probably right.”

“Next week there’s a discount on the forms you need to move out. Maybe you should go back to that city you were always talking about.”

Cecil gasps a little at the hug that he’s pulled into. It’s quick, almost impersonal, but it gets the point across as well as it ever has. 

“I’m going to miss you, Cecil,” Steve says. “I know you hate me for a what I did, but you always knew what was best.”

“Maybe I don’t hate you as much as I say I do,” Cecil admits. “You ruined a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to be happy.”

Across the hall, Station Management gurgles impatiently. Both of them jump slightly at the noise, but chuckle. They leave quickly and both disappear in their separate cars. Two weeks later, Cecil announces that the widely-hated Steve Carlsburg will be leaving Night Vale for good. There are cheers all around and Cecil growls “good riddance” into the microphone.

On the other end of the radio, Steve chuckles sadly.


End file.
